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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

As the second year of this blog nears
its end I find healthwise I’m glad the year is nearly over. Mom’s health scare
is behind us and Dad’s knee replacement surgery is done and now we are a week
from Christmas. With everyone’s health accounted for all in all this has been
an incredible year for this little blog and every form it has taken.

Two volumes of letters. The first volume
collected as I have expressed has been named one of only four finalists in the
non-fiction category for an EPIC eBOOK AWARD. It is the highest honor an ebook
can receive.

This year professionally has truly been
beyond any expectation I might have dreamt up for myself. First the fantastic
sales at the conventions I attended this year. I thought FILM-COM would change
things. Maybe it just changed my perspective on things. I attended nine events.
On average I attend 1-3 and they’re all local.

I was financially strapped all year. But
in the end it has paid off. 7 awards. 2 nominations. 3 finals. My screenplays,
books, and documentary based on this blog all soared against the competition.
And my first #1 Amazon Bestseller in Bella Morte: Beginnings.

November was relatively quiet only in
contest news. I made 3 documentaries and one music video before Thanksgiving.

Then December. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

A television producer told me he was
interested in optioning some of my titles. Told me to come back in 90 days with
a literary agent.

That was on a Saturday. The following
Wednesday I found out I was an EPIC Finalist. And signed with a literary agent.

Now news that I may get a response from
a huge hero of mine. I started crying this morning when I got the news. It’s
hard to process so much in so little time.

So many people helped me get where I am.
And I’ve told them on several occasions through this blog and in person. By
word and by action. They have my undying gratitude.

But this blog is called Letters to Daniel.

And when I talk about my career and
crawling out of darkest of holes the turnaround started in May of 2010 when I
wrote Another Way to Die. Honestly
your work inspires me. Your activism where women’s rights are concerned touches
me. I know our paths may never cross, but your films have been everything from
security blankets (Cowboys & Aliens) to storyline inspiration, I can’t
really narrow list down as one of my favorites is Mother and another is Casino
Royale and those are very different kinds of films.

I know from interviews (which you seem
uncomfortable with at best) that you eschew fame and live for the work. You
love and protect to family and loved ones. You always fight for the integrity
of the film you’re a part of and you always bring you’re A game to your
performance.

I hope to be just as grounded as my
career does what it does and takes whatever turns it will take. Daniel, I know
you’re not reading this. But I can say this enough. Thank you for the work and
being the kind of performer that you are. I admire you greatly. In as much I
hope my work shines as authentically as yours has.

Friday, December 12, 2014

I’m here, because things just, well they
just keep getting better. I want to take a moment here to thank the people who
saved my life. First, there’s Missy, if you follow this blog at all you’ve
heard me mention her name a million times in a dozen different contexts. If I
blabbed on about her I might bore you. But here’s the truth.

When we were in Texas and I was at my
sickest, she was there. An overburdened psychiatric system that made the
treatment I received at 7 Counties seem like the gold standard. And believe as
good as it was, the system is made to keep people out. And there were times I
cursed the day I ever walked through those doors. But Missy was always there.
Always encouraging. Never judging. Sure she got mad. She we exchanged hurtful
words. But the thing was she seemed to be helped by attendance to psychiatiric
and therapeutic sessions. She learned what I did.

Life with me was hard. No cake walk. I
took my meds without question but there were days that I wondered if a magic
switch would flip and life would get better. Would feel better. Not grandiose but happy, joy, the ability to
concentrate. And yes even pain and
sorrow. As a writer I felt my story. I didn’t think it. So right before
treatment bipolar disorder robbed me of my creative voice and all I did was
write letter after letter, which I later learned was a form of hypographia that
those with bipolar disorder are often afflicted with.

And then the treatment seemed to rob me of any hope getting my voice
back. And then there was GLADIATOR. I saw the previews and a story came to me.
It was hideous. It was burn it away, use it as a table evener bad. I threw it
away. But I was happy to be writing again.

Missy lived the hardest part of the
journey with me. The wild mood swings, the eight hour crying jags, going to bed
hungry, waking up hungry. Not even having pen or paper to write with at times.
And we CHOSE to do this.

I can honestly say Maurice Benard and
his wife Paula’s courage in sharing their story saved my emotional and physical
life. He plays Sonny Corinthos on General Hospital. In October of 1999 nobody,
and I mean nobody was talking about
mental illness. But they were. And because of their fearlessness in sharing
what their lives had been like I was able to see the symptoms in myself.
Without their activism I may have lost my battle altogether.

And then there is someone who I usually
say unkind things about. My sister Sara. I’m not really all that close to any
of my siblings. Not my brother, and not my three sisters. If untangled that
family tree that would be a blogpost all unto itself.

Sara was the one to tell me to ask to be
evaluated for depression and manic depression. That’s right folks, I was
diagnosed at a time when manic depression was the term for bipolar disorder.
Honestly I think manic depression has a romanticism to it. Not I like the
disorder, but it’s been with me all of my adult life. And while acknowledge the
very desperate need for medication and treatment I don’t where I’d be without
it. Without Sara telling what to do I may have languished to the point where
the very tenuous grasp I had on reality at the time may have slipped away
altogether and I would have done something stupid to myself that I couldn’t
recover from.

Missy, Maurice (in sharing his story, I
don’t know him), Sara thank for saving my life. Because when everyone else was
looking away you were there at the most traumatic of moments doing triage in
your own unique ways.

Russell Crowe. He breathed new life into
my writer brain and set the wheels a churning. Scripts. Books. None
particularly good. But A Beautiful Mind set me free in ways this wonderfully
gifted actor and director will never know. That movie and GLADIATOR and
CINDERELLA MAN helped heal creative wounds. For that I will always be grateful.

Pamela Turner, yet another name you hear
rung loud and clear and often. None of this happens without her. She suggested
digicon. She told me about Fandom Fest. Where I met two of my publishers. Hydra
and Blackwyrm. Where I met my publicist. Where I met my agent. She’s bought my
medicine when I couldn’t afford it. She’s taken me to the hospital. She’s taken
me to 7 Counties. She’s an awesome friend and has been there for through many
of my crap sandwich moments.

And then there’s mom and dad. They give
me shelter and food. And of course as dysfunctional as it may be, they give me
love.

And finally, the man of the hour, Daniel
Craig. I recently signed with a literary agent. There’s a television executive
who wants to option some of my book titles. And I’m a finalist for a very
prestigious ebook award for Letters to Daniel the memoir.

I just wanted to thank you for
everything your work has done to inspire me in my own work.

Amy Unplugged

Letters:the Memoir

From: The Author, To: Daniel Craig

Dear Readers,

Daniel Craig is my favorite actor. His work and acting style and how he carries himself professionally and personally inspire me greatly. Or more simply put by Kevin Smith about The Book Of Mormon Musical, he is my Spirit Animal. This blog is my memoirs as told to a silent witness of my choosing, Daniel. And of course all of you who visit daily to see me battle bipolar disorder, my dysfunctional family, or my personal demons. Or better, on my good days thanking those who have truly been my guardian angels. I thank you all who come and bear silent witness or sometimes leave a comment or two. Perhaps one day I will meet my hero, and get to thank him in person.